26 Feb There Are No Deloads In The Jungle

By: Danny Vega

2 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Have Scheduled Deloads

Are there some people who can go all out all the time, ignore deloads, do 10 meets a year, and not break down? Maybe. But people like that are few and far in between. Most of us need to build deload weeks into our programming to stay fresh and remain injury free. By now, you should realize that I was being facetious with this title. But now that I have your attention, let me give you two reasons why people think they don’t need scheduled deloads.

1. “I’ll just listen to my body. Cybernetic periodization, bro.”

This usually means that you will deload when your body forces you to. Not the smartest move. By the time you feel run down, or experience a decrease in performance, you are toeing the line between overreaching and overtraining. Put simply, overreaching is when you have accumulated training stress to a point when your performance suffers and it may take days or weeks to recover. When you are overtrained, it may take months to recover. Not exactly helpful to your goals. Some tell-tale signs would be a loss of motivation, loss of hunger, and bad sleep, among others. Long story short, you’re probably not going to be able to “listen to your body” in time to avoid a detriment to your performance.

2. Trying to make up for a bad training week

It happens. You miss a rep, or you just have an all out crappy training week. Your ego tells you to come back and get it done next week. The thing is–who cares? Seriously, the only time this really matters is on the platform. We train to build strength, and we don’t test often. Chances are, you are doing too much anyway. Maybe there are some stressors in your life that are not training related. A deload week will do you well. Regroup, check your ego, and come back healthy and possibly stronger.

One of my favorite aspects of 10/20/life is the scheduled deload week. I have never felt better. I am well rested and always hungry to train. I push it hard two out of every three weeks, and when it’s time to deload, I welcome it. This is what helps me keep the momentum going forward. So make sure to embrace the deload week for continued gains.

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Danny Vega

Danny Vega is a 220lb raw powerlifter with meet bests of 640 squat in wraps (610 raw), 400 bench, and 700 deadlift. A native of Miami, Florida, Vega received his bachelor’s degree in political science from Columbia University in 2004, where he was a member of the football team and a three-time Dean’s List recipient. Vega earned his masters of science in human performance from the University of Florida, where he worked with the national championship men’s basketball team along with women’s basketball, tennis, and golf programs. He then went on to become the Strength & Conditioning coordinator for VCU basketball. The Rams were 2007 conference champions and made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

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